l’ll be there! Bring the kids and say hello!
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Spectrum Service?
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This past January, my home internet bill was $49.98. In February it was $73.40. “That’s a big hike,” I thought, so I logged in to my account. My account page online wasn’t informative, so I opted to have a chat. I got someone named Frank. Here is what I recall of the text conversation after the ID check-in:
Me: So, Frank, why has my bill gone up $24?
Frank: Let me look it up. (pause) You had a promotion that gave you a discount of $30, but it expired.
Me: I’m a senior, and I’m trying to reduce my expenses. Is there any way you can lower my bill?
Frank: (explanation about my current equipment that I don’t understand) Do you have wi-fi?
Me: I don’t know. I thought I did.
Frank: Our records show that you only have our modem. Do you have a router, too? It’s a tower with a light.
Me: I don’t know. (I go look). There’s a small thing with blinking green lights and a tower thing with a blue light.
Frank: That’s our router. It’s not on your service. I need the serial number to add it to your account.
(I take a photo of the serial number with my iPhone and type it into the chat. Please note: I’m not totally technologically ignorant.)
Me: Are there any new promotions that could lower my bill?
Frank: No. But the router will add $5 a month to your account.
Me: Do you realize how hilariously aggravating this is? I called because my bill went up and now it’s going to be even higher?
Frank: blah blah…policies…blah blah
Me: I know you’re not personally responsible for this, but it is totally absurd.
Frank: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: ( )
P.S. My Spectrum bill is now $80.
Ponder
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Are you a keeper of the light?
Do you cradle a candle
fingers glowing
sheltering the flame?
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Are you a keeper of the peace?
Do you cleave to the center
feet balanced
plumes unruffled?
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Are you a keeper of love?
Do you offer a hand to another
as an equal
a sister or brother?
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Are you a keeper of your soul?
Do you guard it like a sentry,
only allowing goodness
to pass through?
God’s Flute
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is what I want to be
a hollow bamboo tube
with holes carefully placed
burnished by lifetimes
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a pipe that channels
the eternal breath of Spirit
whose holes release
the wind of sacred song
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Oh, my beloved,
play your tune through me
breath of love and light
holy golden melody
Alex V
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Alex has a secret. Sometimes he has a special power. He can use his eyes in a certain way and the girl he wants to fuck just slides toward him. The power gives Alex just the right words to say, and the golden rays shine out of his eyes. The power, when he has it, can illuminate the girl’s aura. It makes her glow and vibrate in a rainbow halo.
The problem with the power is that Alex can’t control it. He’s been working on this for a few years now. He knows that beer dulls the power but weed enhances it. He figures that’s why the Rastafarians use ganja as a religious rite. They must have a link to the same power. He’s read a lot about the Rastas, trying to suss out more but the answers he wanted weren’t there.
The power affects his speech and his eyes. When he has it, he can be so incredibly deep and eloquent that he astounds himself. Alex knows he’s intelligent. When he has the power, he’s brilliant. Like the time he was explaining the five levels of his dreams to Lisa and her friend Sandra. The way they looked at him, with such wide-eyed awe. He knocked their socks off.
Alex can feel the power when it comes on. It’s like a warm humming in his root chakra. At first he thought it was the kundalini energy awakening. He researched kundalini and decided that this power wasn’t the vital energy the Indian sages talked about. It was something different. Alex’s current theory is that he’s an Indigo child, part of a new, more evolved race on Earth.
Steps
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I’ve met two roads
in woods and fields
and concrete paths diverging
A choice of two,
obscured by fog
may end in night submerging
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One might be a stony way
slippery leaves a peril
or a flatter, smooth sashay
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Frost ignored,
it’s taken decades
to ponder forks that challenge
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With calm regard,
admit that easy roads
can disappoint or damage
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Learn the thinly marked
with roots and rubble
are usually worth the trouble
Carolyn
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Carolyn
She lives at the nursing home in a padded wheelchair, legs curled up, feet bare. Wiry gray hair, teeth worn down from grinding. All day she barks, “Eh, eh, eh, eh!” In bed, she continues. Does she sleep or keep barking? I don’t know; I’m not there at night.
Her name is Carolyn. The staff and the other residents ignore her noise. It is part of the day’s sounds, along with carts wheeling down the halls, announcements over the PA system, and the eternal beeping of call buttons.
The first time, on my way out, I asked her, “Are you singing?” “Singing,” she said, and after a pause, continued to bark.
The next time, I stopped and said, “Hello, Carolyn. I’ll sing you a song.” I sang, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”
“Sunshine,” she said, and moved her lips with some of the lyrics.
After one chorus and a verse, I said, “I have to go now, but next time I’ll sing you another song.”
“Thank you,” she said. A conversation. An appropriate response.
I was surprised. And I wept as I waited for the elevator.
So it snowed
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from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning,
Eight inches or more, the right kind of snow
for snowmen and angels
I turned up the heat another degree
got the snow shovel out of the basement
made a pot of chicken soup with white beans and onions
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In 1941, Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis
Women, children, and men too old to fight
slowly starved during long, freezing winters
eating sunflower seed cakes made for cattle
burning furniture for warmth
Bombs fell.
Frozen bodies made mounds
on snowy streets.
*
Here I shoveled a path to the car
ate a bowl of soup
The siege lasted 827 days
Finnish and German forces
cut off all supply lines
*
When the snowplow clears the driveway,
should I go to the store
for some more pears?
The Islands Between
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It was an archipelago in a silent sea
three larger islands and four smaller
seven being the favorite
number of mystics
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On the first island lived a wizard
His specialty was convincing people
not to do what they wanted
He lived in a damp dugout
and only ate leftovers
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On the second island lived a siren
banished there for her selfish ways
she sat on a rock, singing her siren song
but no ships ever sailed the silent sea
so she grew paler and paler until
only her song was left
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On the third island lived a monk,
a survivor from a sunken civilization
she built a garden of smooth stones
and a hut of driftwood
she spent her days weaving sea grass
into fragrant empty baskets
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Calico cats lived on the fourth island
Painted turtles on the fifth
On the sixth all the seabirds
came to rest and nest
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the seventh island was always
covered in mist
so no one ever knew
if anyone lived there at all
Alex 4
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Alex pulls the gray cap down over his eyebrows. This snow can’t last forever. His feet are wet and freezing in the sodden sneakers. Gram was right about the boots, but Alex had been getting high with friends so he clicked off her voice on his iPhone. Blah, blah, blah, that’s what they sounded like, Gram and Dad. Blah, blah, blah. Don’t you need your boots? It’s snowing! Have you looked for a job? If we give you money, don’t use it to buy cigarettes. Blah, blah, blah.
Alex walks past houses all lit up and glowing warm against the night and the falling snow. He imagines being inside with a happy, noisy family, and he knows he’d like it for an hour or so. But then he’d start to feel edgy, and everyone would be looking at him, criticizing his clothes or what he did, and asking him about his life. He’d have to leave. Like Christmas Day at Gram’s. All the noise and laughter and all those questions about plans and jobs and school. Blah, blah, blah. Alex had left before the pies and ice cream.
Alex says aloud, “I’m a survivor.” He knows he can stretch twenty bucks into two or three days of hanging out in town. His friend at the taco place slips him the leftovers. And the diner has a breakfast special that’s under $5.00. He gets by. His stuff is stashed behind the couch in the coffee bar. He doesn’t have much stuff. Alex is proud that he’s not attached to material objects. Except his necklace with the old house key. This is one thing he can’t lose. It opens the door to his mom’s loft in the City. Right now he’s pissed at her because she kicked him out. But he may want to go hang out there sometime.
Alex bums a cigarette off a drunk student who is leaning against the wall outside of the pub. He keeps walking. His iPhone dings with a text message. It’s from Gram. R U OK? Call me. Alex decides not to answer. He already has a place to stay tonight. He picked up this coed from NYU. It’s her last night before the dorms reopen down on Union Square. She’s got a friend whose roommate is out of town. Alex can sleep in the girl’s bed for one night. Lisa—that’s the coed’s name—says he can stay there if he takes a shower first. Alex needs the bed but he’s a bit insulted. Like he smells or something. How long has he been wearing these clothes anyway? When did he and Gram choose them at the Salvation Army? Was it a week ago? They picked out a good shirt, a jacket and tie, and a pair of black slacks. The clothes were supposed to be for job-hunting. Job-hunting. That’s another one of those interminable lectures: wash your hair, brush your teeth. Always check back with the secretary or the manager. Blah, blah, blah. They just never shut up.
Tangled Magic 